Chapter 88. Assigning Vacation Homework
They said taking 58 percent of the votes among nine teams was the highest vote share in survival-show history.
And considering Univ had pulled that off while competing against major agencies, it was even more difficult.
At this point, it was probably fair to say Universe's name value had risen almost to Riven's level.
The individual member scores were even more ridiculous.
At first, when I couldn't find the members' names, I thought Shin Hyung-geol had pulled some kind of bait-and-switch on me after all.
But no.
Song Eun-bin, Kim Sol, and Choi Sarang were sitting right at the very top.
First, second, and third.
In exactly that order.
"The Univ members produced by Universe have swept gold, silver, and bronze! This is shocking!"
The MC even announced that the three members alone had received exactly 50 percent of all individual votes.
It was far better than I'd expected.
Was this the power of Billy Aaron and Emil Lipa?
Maybe.
But I couldn't be sure.
More likely, viewers had gotten seriously angry over how absurdly low Univ's scores had been until now.
By the fourth competition, the audience itself had started voting strategically.
"All right! 〈Rebooting〉! Now, together with mega-agency Universe! The eleven members entering the debut lineup are...!"
The MC continued.
I needed to think fast.
With a result this good, I could squeeze out one more benefit.
What would be useful?
More importantly, the vote count.
Just as the MC said, Univ's members had received overwhelmingly high numbers.
But from fourth place down to eleventh, the gaps were tiny.
From my perspective, that was obviously convenient.
But it also meant the public's actual preferences probably weren't being reflected properly in those lower rankings.
There could be someone unfairly left outside the debut lineup.
"Wait a moment."
"Yes, Producer Do Jun-hyeok!"
"According to my own evaluation criteria, the only members ready to debut right now are first, second, and third place."
The moment I said that into the microphone, the MC froze and touched his earpiece.
Then he glanced toward PD Tak Hyun-mo.
But that wouldn't help him much.
Tak Hyun-mo was watching Shin Hyung-geol too.
"Ah! W-What exactly do you mean?"
"The vote gaps from fourth place onward are too small. I'm not saying those members aren't talented. I mean the votes are so tightly clustered that they don't look very useful for distinguishing between them. I'd like to hold a separate audition for trainees who seem capable of entering the ranking range."
Far away, among the gathered staff, I saw a black hole.
It was Dae-hun's mouth hanging wide open while his face turned deathly pale.
Once Shin Hyung-geol's instructions had apparently come through, the MC finally nodded.
The broadcast was basically over anyway.
If anyone got cursed at for this, it would be me, the one holding the wheel.
So they were telling me to do whatever I wanted.
"Hyung! Why are you so determined to melt my insides every chance you get?!"
Dae-hun came over yelling as I headed back toward the waiting room after filming.
His insides were melting over something this small?
If he heard what kind of deal I'd made with Shin Hyung-geol while keeping a stalker tied up nearby, he'd probably say he was dying.
"I know what I'm doing. Chairman Shin thinks I'm cute too."
"I should've known from the moment you lied about being a Marine. Do you not value your life?"
"Public service at a nursing home or Marine Corps, both of them catch ghosts."
Of course, I probably couldn't survive twenty forehead flicks.
I entered the waiting room, packed up my things, and came back out.
Even then, Shin Hyung-geol didn't say anything to me.
Still, he didn't look particularly upset.
We'd agreed that the separate audition schedule would be announced later on Universe's website, so we could just head back for now.
I was about to leave with only the Univ members.
Then I saw twenty trainees completely filling the hallway outside the waiting room, waiting for me.
"CEO! I love you!"
"I was exactly twentieth."
They all stared at me with bright, wide-open eyes.
Now it felt like I'd done a good deed for selfish reasons.
Every one of them looked like a doll and was incredibly lovable...
But I was still planning to eliminate all but eleven.
So I could confidently say there had been absolutely no selfish motive involved.
The real final audition would be run by Universe as a live broadcast.
We'd give everyone plenty of rest and enough time to practice.
There had already been endless accusations of manipulation, so viewers seemed to think this was a reasonable choice too.
Billy Aaron returned to America for the time being after the schedule was delayed.
She left a hard drive containing her songs at Universe.
She told us to call her anytime once the members were chosen.
I didn't know exactly what this project meant to her, but having her support still made me happy.
She also said she'd written a few songs after being inspired by Blue Moon, so I was looking forward to those too.
September became something like a vacation for everyone.
Even so, thanks to the aftermath of 〈Rebooting〉, trainee applications exceeded seventy.
Universe still had fewer trainees than some major agencies, but even large agencies could sometimes fall to around thirty trainees.
So the real metric was probably the number of applicants.
At this point, Universe had practically become a major agency for real.
Blue Moon had only performed in the first and third rounds, yet their fandom had doubled.
We'd achieved enough to survive an entire winter and then some.
Popularity aside...
Or perhaps because their popularity had risen so much...
The Blue Moon members were probably carrying plenty of worries by now.
It was difficult for me to know what each of them was struggling with.
So I decided to work on something I'd already been anxious about for a while.
The members' closeness with each other.
When popularity rises and schedules become busier, misunderstandings naturally build up and fights can happen.
Just like Astra from Team 1.
I took the members to a beach on Geoje Island.
"The sea~!"
Aran shouted by herself while walking along the breakwater overlooking the beach.
"Aran. You became an adult this year. Was there anything you wanted to try once you became an adult?"
I'd given her roses for Coming-of-Age Day, but I didn't think we'd really celebrated it in any particularly memorable way.
So I asked.
"Something I wanted to try? Hmm. What can you do once you're an adult? I've already tried alcohol."
Apparently nothing came to mind quickly.
Aran stayed silent for a long time.
